


Go Hide, I'll Come Seek

by Huggle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The directive was simple, if challenging.  Engage The Avengers in battle.  Take one of them.  Make him suffer.</p>
<p>And make sure you get away with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go Hide, I'll Come Seek

“There really isn’t any point in you struggling,” Harrigan said.

Clint did it anyway. He was angry, and hurt, and embarrassed that it was only just struggling. But the man holding him was strong as Thor, and the hand he had around Clint’s wrists was big and solid like it was forged.

“You know they’re going to be looking for me,” he said.

Harrigan had brought him to an old factory, long since mothballed. Dust and debris were everywhere, and the entire place looked as if a hearty sneeze would bring it down. 

“Of course they are, I know that.” He shifted his grip suddenly, releasing Clint’s hands and instead picking him up from behind.

“Hey!” Clint barely had time to react before he was dropped flat against the floor, and Harrigan followed him down, kept him pinned there with a knee in the small of his back.

The pressure was agony, worse when Clint tried to push himself up. He twisted his head around enough to see Harrigan filling a syringe from a small glass bottle.

“What are you doing?”

Harrigan pocketed the bottle, and leaned forward to ruffle Clint’s hair. “This is going to make you more manageable for the next part. You’re not going to be able to move. Oh, don’t worry; it’s a very clever drug. You’ll be able to breathe, to blink. You might piss yourself, so I apologise for that in advance. But that’s about it.”

There was a sharp prick in his neck, and Clint felt woozy almost at once.

“It’s also very fast acting.”

“Wh-“ Clint started, but his tongue felt leaden and heavy in his mouth. His arm muscles started to shake and then gave out and his cheek stung as his head collapsed back down onto the floor.

“Alright then.”

Harrigan got up and moved out of Clint’s limited line of sight. Clint heard something heavy grate as if it was being dragged along the floor. Then Harrigan returned, and picked him up, chest to chest, so that Clint’s head was resting on his shoulder.

He carried Clint across the floor, while his frustration and worry grew. He could only see where they’d been, not where they were going. The open factory floor became a corridor, crumbling mildewed walls, a damp torn carpet then bare brick.

Then Harrigan had to bend, and the natural light dimmed and was replaced by shadows that faded to black.

He set Clint down, straightened him out and crouched down beside him.

“About fifty years ago, the man who owned this factory decided he was going to kill his mistress. Nobody else knew they were having an affair. But she was getting pushy. He didn’t rush it – he took his time and he planned it out, and he hired some people to put this compartment in here on the weekends. Hid it down the end of the corridor past his office. Nobody ever came down here.

“Then one night he lured her up here, drugged her, and stuffed her inside it. It was soundproof, so he didn’t have to worry about anybody hearing her. Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe he thought she was dead, and the body would never be found. Or maybe he got some kick out of the thought of her screaming and fighting to get out, while he filled in tax returns and gave the employee of the week his bonus less than thirty feet away.”

Clint’s breathing was even, courtesy of Harrigan’s wonder drug, but his heart felt like it was pounding out a countdown. 

“Like I’m going to get,” Harrigan said. “Sitting over at that little coffee house on fourth, sipping a latte and staring at the ass of that pretty little waitress. But if I suffer an involuntary reaction, it’s going to be thinking of you in here. Because even when the drug wears off – and it’ll take a while – you’re not getting out of here on your own. And none of them are ever going to find you.”

Harrigan petted his head, and then he stepped away. Clint lost sight of him but he heard the horrid sound of something heavy being shifted, and felt the vibration through the floor. The clank sound of the door being closed.

After that all he could hear was his own breathing, frustratingly calm.

::::

“We’re getting good at this,” Tony said. “Letting people take Barton.”

“Tony, we’ll find him,” Bruce said. When he’d changed back, the others had broken the news. It was good thinking to wait until he wasn’t big, grouchy and green anymore. Telling Hulk that someone had apparently snuck up on them in the middle of battle and snatched Clint would have provoked a different reaction than telling him. “Right?”

Natasha was standing there with Fury and Coulson. None of the three of them looked so sure.

“Right?” Tony repeated. 

Bruce finished tying his laces and straightened up. “You’re not exactly filling us with confidence here.”

It was Coulson who stepped forward. He held out a small hand held display – the street where they were standing was outlined in green against the black, but there was nothing of note.

Steve stared at it, shrugged. “This is going to help?”

“It should have helped,” Coulson said. “Right now that is the location where all of us are standing. There should be a small dot marking our positions. Do you see any?”

“So this wasn’t spur of the moment,” Tony said. “I warned you about this, Fury, but look how surprised I am that you didn’t listen.”

It dawned then, on Bruce. “The trackers.”

He quickly explained to Steve and Thor. They all had them, back when Tony suggested since some of them seemed especially vulnerable to kidnap – Clint had lobbed a cushion at him – it would be a good way to make sure everybody knew where everybody was.

Within a week of that, Tony had prototypes and not long after all of them – Fury and Coulson included – had them fitted.

And yet according to Coulson’s display none of them had one implanted.

“Somebody’s managed to turn them off,” Bruce finished. “So we can’t use Clint’s to find him.”

“CCTV’s also been wiped,” Fury said. “JARVIS got anything?”

Tony held up a hand, then his visor shot up. “Nothing. He experienced the same white out as everything else.” He sounded almost offended at that. “Clint was there, then he wasn’t.”

Thor had stayed silent, but now he stepped forward.

“Perhaps if we want to find him, we should start to look. With our eyes.”

::::

It wasn’t possible to keep track of time. Clint had tried, but every now and there a stabbing pain had broken his focus, or his breathing would catch a little, and he wondered if Harrigan had been wrong about his drug. Maybe it was going to kill him.

Or maybe it was starting to wear off, but Harrigan had said it would take a while. Clint had either been there two minutes or two hours, it couldn’t have been anything longer.

If it was going to take days for the drug to burn out of his system, then he was fucked unless the others found him. But if it wore off more quickly, he could at least try and rescue himself.

He played everything backwards, analysing all of it. The heavy door. He’d barely seen it, flat against the wall as it had been, and with his enforced tunnel vision. But it had been thick. He hadn’t heard a lock or a bolt, so the weight itself had to be enough to trap him, but that beggared the question of how the factory owner had closed it all those years before. 

The floor was open plan, lots of wide tall windows. Good field of vision, but all around them were other buildings that were also abandoned, and had been for years. Anything of value would already have been stripped. Unless someone was looking for shelter for the night, nobody would be traipsing through here.

And even if they did, Harrigan’s story was still playing over in his head. The woman, screaming and hammering on the walls. And people working so close by yet none of them heard a thing.

He pushed that image aside. Maybe Harrigan had made it all up to mess with him. Once he could move again, he’d test how soundproof this place was until he couldn’t. Presuming he wasn’t able to budge the door or find a weak spot anywhere in the unit.

He’d been ready to take out one of the drones that had been zeroing in on Tony when Harrigan had wrenched him around. A backhanded slap had driven Clint to the floor, and Harrigan was fast enough to be on him before he could draw his side arm. One more hit was all it had taken to make Clint confused and manageable, but he remembered Harrigan carrying him to the car, remembered being searched, and everything that he might use being stripped from him.

By the time he’d recovered enough to fight, they’d been pulling up here, and the scuffle in the car had been short and embarrassingly pointless.

Harrigan had laughed in his face at one point, then dragged him out of the car by the wrists.

So he had nothing on him – no tools, no weapons, no radio communications.

But he had something in him that might help – the sub-dermal tracker. He was pretty sure he’d have remembered Harrigan digging that out of his ass.

But he was also sure that Harrigan seemed to have thought of everything. His ultra smart drones, giving even Tony a run for his money. The drug that would pick and choose which muscles to paralyse and which to leave alone. 

This secret prison where no one would ever find him – Harrigan had been so confident on that.

He’d taken care of the tracker too. Clint just knew it.

In other words, if he didn’t manage to find a way out of here...the box would have claimed two lives.

::::

Thor had respect for his fellow warriors, but they frustrated him to no end. This reliance on their technology – yes, it was impressive (to them) but they seemed to have forgotten that they could act without it.

Especially when it had already been proven to be of no help in the current situation.

Natasha seemed to sense his impatience. She had touched his arm, led him out of the room while Tony Stark vented his fear and anger on Nick Fury.

“We may not have a way to find him now. But you do.”

Thor had nodded. Yes, he did. Or rather, he knew someone who could.

::::

The pain had ramped up, suddenly, and Clint didn’t know if it was just bad or made worse by the fact that he had to lie there and take it. He couldn’t react, except inwardly, to curse and try to imagine what it would be like to catch up with Harrigan and put a bullet through his head.

But once the pain subsided again, he had to start considering just how long he had in here. Air might be more of a problem than water. The compartment didn’t have to be air tight for him to suffocate. Just restricted enough.

He supposed he should be grateful that Harrigan hadn’t left him lying face down or he probably would have been dead already. But then Harrigan hadn’t wanted to rush things.

_Screaming and fighting to get out_. So probably upwards of one day, but less than three.

It was good to have a timeline.

Not long after that he realised he could move the fingers of his right hand – just a little, but it was a start.

::::

Thor hadn’t wasted time going to fetch the others. There would be questions, and curiosity, and while he trusted his new friends, he wasn’t ready to share everything he knew with them. Even if Natasha already seem to know more than she should.

Mjolnir held in front of him, he raced through the sky above the city, looking for the building Heimdall had identified. When he’d recounted what he’d seen, Thor was enraged. Once he’d recovered Clint Barton, he would hunt this Harrigan down and show him what it meant to abuse his allies.

He set down in front of the building and went inside. There was no sign that Harrigan had returned, but Thor knew him now to be an opponent of equal strength and intelligence. He wanted nothing to delay him in reaching Barton, so took extra caution as he entered the structure.

He considered, briefly, powering up through the floors separating them, but this building was so old that it might collapse around him. Instead, he took the stairs, coming out on the floor where he knew Clint to be trapped.

::::

When Clint heard the door being dragged open, he readied himself. It was going to be one of two things – Harrigan, back to toy with him, or maybe move him, or someone had found him.

“Clint,” a voice said.

Maybe it was so close to being free that made the frustration unbearable. He would have given anything to answer, but his voice was locked up like the rest of him.

Thor took hold of him, carefully, as if he understood. “I have you, you will be alright.” He pulled Clint against him, held onto him as he backed carefully out of the compartment. It was almost the same way that Harrigan had carried him in there, but Thor’s hold was different.

Clint managed to brush his fingers against Thor’s side, and he heard the other man give a relieved sigh.

“Once you are with the others, I will find and deal with Harrigan.”

Clint could do nothing but give himself over to Thor as they went outside and Thor shifted him to a one arm hold so he could use Mjolnir. They had the same idea, just a different way of going about it.

::::

Harrigan leaned back in his seat at the coffee shop. It was a lovely, warm day. The street was bustling, and his favourite waitress was cleaning the table opposite which presented him with an appreciable view.

He sipped his latte. It had only occurred to him in the past few minutes that he could have left a concealed night vision camera in the compartment. Then he wouldn’t have to be sitting here imagining what Barton was doing. He could be watching it. Of course, right now he would still be paralysed. Helpless.

Later he would be able to move but nothing else would have changed. Harrigan was pretty sure it would be suffocation in the end. He’d covered his tracks very well. No one was going to find Barton, and no one was going to find him. He’d completed the challenge set to him. Engage the Avengers in battle. Escape, but not empty handed. Take one of them away with you, and finish him. Be creative. Hurt them.

And make sure you get away with it.

Usually his record spoke for itself, but in truth he’d enjoyed the risk in not only starting a fight with Fury’s ‘push comes to shove’ team but also organising an end for his specialist that would stick in Fury’s craw for years to come.

Fury wouldn’t forget it. Neither would Stark or the rest of them. He hoped it’d haunt them. Something as incredible as the feat he’d just pulled off should stay memorable.

Now he just had to wait for the phone call with details of the job he’d earned.

Harrigan finished his coffee and pushed the cup away. He had time for another. He had time for a lot of things. Unlike someone else he could mention, for whom time was definitely something of an issue.

“Get you a refill?”

Harrigan looked over, frowning. Clint Barton was sitting at the table on his right, chair turned towards him. He said nothing, just waved at the waitress and pointed to Harrigan’s cup. She nodded, and went back inside.

“I guess you’re a little surprised to see me.”

There was no denying that. He studied Barton carefully. He was pale, and there were still traces of the grime from the factory on his face and his clothing, but beneath the grime the bruises and scrapes were starting to show.

“You could say so. Now I’m feeling like I underestimated you, Specialist Barton. Mind telling me how you got out? Hell, you shouldn’t even be able to speak yet.”

Barton nodded, a faint smile on his lips. He waited until the waitress came out and set a fresh latte in front of Harrigan and then went back to cleaning tables before he responded.

“You were a little overconfident. See I know somebody as smart as you. Somebody who was able to metabolise that drug right out of my system.”

Harrigan sipped at the latte, played a little for time. If Barton was here, then his assignment wasn’t done. He had to find a way of grabbing the little prick – again – and finishing him. Even if it meant doing it right here. So long as was it painful and unforgettable.

“But you still had to get out of the box first.” 

“You didn’t just underestimate me, Harrigan. Tell me – how’s the coffee?”

Harrigan was about to answer when the cup slipped out of his fingers. It smashed on the ground, the coffee soaking his pants. He lurched forward, staggered to his feet.

“It’s just,” Clint continued, “that I happen to know the waitress.”

Harrigan managed to look over to the girl cleaning the tables. She wasn’t doing that now. She was staring at him, and he hadn’t paid attention before. She wasn’t _his_ waitress. She was shorter, more toned, a red head. And right now she looked like she wanted to kill him.

“It’s a very clever drug,” Clint said. “Also courtesy of my smart friend.”

Harrigan felt his body going dead on him, but if there was one thing he was going to do before they took him, it was finish the job. He managed the last two or three steps and wrapped one hand around Barton’s throat.

“Can he bring you back from the dead?” he snarled, and started to squeeze.

A huge hand closed over his wrist and he was yanked back. Harrigan looked up to see the Asgardian standing over him.

“That won’t be a requirement,” Thor said, and shoved him hard to the ground.

From there, all Harrigan could do was watch as Barton exchanged looks with the blonde man. The waitress came over, and whispered something into Barton’s ear, then led him away.

“Dr. Banner said to tell you that you might,” Thor started and then grimaced and stepped back a couple of feet. “It seems you already know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an Avengers Kink Meme prompt that asked for Clint to be taken from the team mid-battle, drugged and left trapped somewhere he was not likely to be found. I've taken some liberties with Thor and Heimdall. 
> 
> No. 2 in my ten in ten.


End file.
